Omnipresent in its perception, death an idea prevalent in the world of Metal, whose ideology has been widely explored particularly within the subtly named genre of Death Metal. Veterans in the art of Old School Death Metal, Asphyx are weather worn experts in its field. Bringing together a sense of organic jamming contrasted with infintely calculated makes for utterly chaotic material. Having been five years since their previous release Deathhammer, Incoming Death represents a new statement to the idea of death itself. A new study in the art of dying and who better than to speak to the artist and true gentleman Martin Van Drunen the bands singer and spokesperson to deliver an in depth look into a life of Incoming Death.

Today I have with me Mr Martin Van Drunen, did I pronounce that right?

You did pronounce it right, well there was a little bit of an English accent but for an Englishman you did fine haha!

How are you today?

Good, good, very busy now of course. Talking to all over the world, right now I’m particularly happy because we’ve got a good line! I’m fine, totally good, I hope you too!

You’ve got the brand new album Incoming Death coming out. What was the inspiration behind the album’s title?

Well its basically, quite simple, when soldiers and English speaking soldiers in fact were in the trenches and they were under fire of rockets or whatever they would scream “incoming”. “Incoming” and then everybody took cover and I was just thinking to myself “Ok, why not do Incoming Death instead of incoming rockets” and so Incoming Death is Death Metal and Asphyx.

Its just like BAM, you know you put the record on and then seek shelter in hell or something haha! Its not a big, long philosophic story, thats just how it is. I had the idea straight after Deathhammer. Without even thinking of a new album, the next time we do something how about this title? Its not existing in English but Deathhammer didn’t either. Its another kind of wordplay and they said yeah its nice, we can use it as a working title but in the end we did use it. As you know as a native English speaker, it doesn’t exist. Its full of shit haha! Its a nice title and thats what its all about. It should grab.

Thematically, does it follow a theme or is it inidivdual kind of stories of Incoming Death?

Thats basically how it is yeah, every song is a different topic. Sometimes its war, sometimes its Science fiction. The usual core humour thing but yeah the red line is Death as always. Thats always the case with us haha!

The first time that we spoke was when you played Damnation, you’d literally just started going into the studio. What was it like laying the record down?

Well it was a struggle to be honest from the beginning onwards. After Damnation, the first thing that we had to do was record this Flexidisc for Decibel. Because we were in a studio that we have never been in before it was only for one but you are there for one weekend. You’re there for a weekend, you’ve got the drums there, you’ve got the amps there and a fridge full of beer so lets jam! We ended up with like seven new songs but still we had something still missing with a few songs.

What happened was that all of these recordings were not used at all. The songs were but not the recordings, except for the track for the Flexi single. Well at least we have been productive and we have a shitload of new material that has to be worked out a little bit. Once we had about ten songs, we said to Century Media now we think that we are really ready to start recording the real deal so we went to a studio not far away from my house. It was a kind of deal with a very good soundman of ours. We thought Ok he’s really reliable, he knows what he’s talking about. It was nice, he was a young kid and we felt really relaxed in there just doing our thing also just jamming a lot even while recording. From there Paul took it home with all the guitar parts but the very first part was a bit of a struggle.

Overall, from writing aspect, you wrote seven songs in a weekend! Is that right?

Yeah but the thing is that a lot of the riffs were just somewhere in the back of our heads. Some things just had to be arranged but the thing is for sure that the title track Incoming Death was during that session. Paul and Aski were just warming up, saying ok let’s check some sound stuff here. Paul came in with this riff and I said what the fuck are you playing there! Repeat it again and then Aski was drumming along and you got the title track of the album! What? I said yeah! This is it, just leave it the way it is and he said its not even two minutes!? I said who cares! Then it was done, they did a lot of other stuff but that one was really spontaneous it just came right out of Paul’s speakers like that. It was good fun there’s synergy with us.

It was incoming riffs!

Exactly! If Paul is in the mood he is just firing them off by the dozens. If he has inspiration and is feeling good and a few beers wow! In the end thats also when Century Media got a bit like Ok so you did actually seven songs so that means that we can already think about planning an album. We said woah that means that you’re going to set a deadline which means a lot of pressure and we don’t want that. In the end it did happen and it was a bloody struggle to get there. They really were breathing down our necks for that, in the end if we could not make this deadline of 30th of September we had to skip it to next year. So we just said no, no thats ridiculous for a Death Metal band to be waiting five years for an album. If your name is Rush, yeah you know I’ll accept that, we’re bloody Asphyx a Death Metal band, this is bollocks. We took the pressure and said lets work double hard and take the stress for a few weeks but now its done we have it out this year.

Do you think that the fact that you have that deadline and you have that stress kind of galvanises you into creating a more aggressive driving force behind the album?

Maybe it does subconsciously, the most important thing is that the recording is already done. The pressure comes really from there having to be a photo shoot and the mix has to be done. This time the end mixing with Dan really took us longer than expected and also it was more intense than usual. We wanted to improve a little bit on the sound, in the end we thought we had the last mix. Ok now we’re done, the mix is gound. Then Aski comes and says listen you idiots, I heard it somewhere with a friend of mine, with big studio speakers and I can’t hear any bloody hihats, I can’t hear that or this. I’m really not happy with my drums.

So I go Ok we want you to be happy with your drums so if you’re not then we have to work on this. Dan was a bit like errrrr, shit. I thought we were done with this… No we’re not. The thing is what people don’t know, when you are mixing and then you go to one little thing it may change the whole set up of all the other things. Put the volume on the hihat a little bit higher, it can change a shitload on bass guitar or vocals really. Its hard to explain but it does happen, that was really one or two days before Century Media really wanted the final mix to start mastering. We said no, no, no, we still have to do a little bit on the drums! I think they were going nuts! We said no,no,no everybody has to be happy, all the band. In the end we did manage, the thing is because you already did the album. You already wrote the songs and recorded the songs in the studio, making yourself at the deadline can make you more stressed and more intense but because the recordings are done its of no influence of your emotional state.

The artwork, it was created by Aksel Hermann I believe. How did you come about the idea, did you speak with Aksel or did he come up with it himself?

Well what we usually do with Aksel, its quite easy. I come up with the album title and then I send it to him and I tell him what it means and what I mean by that. I say, you know what you know us, you know our music. You go ahead. Because he is an artist, the more free you let them the better the stuff is going to be. It would be the same as someone telling me how to write a bloody lyric. I would say well go fuck off because I know how to write.

His first design was something that I liked but the others were like nah. Then Aksel actually agreed on it, he said I’m going to keep this for myself and work on that later and I will do something else. Then he came up with the idea of what he was in the end what we would deliver and apparently the fellas were like hmm… I said look, the guy painted stuff, you cannot just tell him now all of a sudden to put something more in a bloody painting. You have to accept it!

Personally I really liked it and he says that the big skull kind of thing, is kind of a demon chasing these souls. Thats just my interpretation of Incoming Death and I said ok it completely covers the mood of the album. Thats what its all about, it doesn’t have to visualise a certain subject of a song its just if it covers. Its all called a cover anyway, if it covers the album with its contents then I am happy enough. Aksel has been part of the band since how many years and one of those things in the band is loyalty. To our fans that have belonged to the band for all these years, I’m really pleased with the artwork and he is too. From all the reactions we hear he did a fantastic job!

Its absolutely fantasatic! I was going to ask, previously you’ve been in Hail of Bullets. There has been a more conceptual idea behind it. I think its Of Frost and War, have you ever thought of trying to do somewhat of a conceptual piece with Asphyx?

There is actually a small thing in my mind but not a full album. The thing is, nowadays its really hard to come up with original things anyway. I do have something in the back of my mind but I don’t know if I will ever be able to work it out and I’m not going to say what it is because I’m not going to let someone pick up my idea haha! Lets put it this way, if I had something that would not be a full album. That would be too much but maybe like you say a few songs.

Like an EP?

Yeah something like that maybe! I’m not saying that its going to happen, you asked me if I ever thought about it and yes I did! To keep an answer really short haha!

What about in terms of the previous release Deathhammer. Did you try different techniques within the band as well as within yourself?

I did in fact! Its funny that you ask because I did! Normally as a vocalist, I don’t know if you know how the set up of a microphone is in a studio. Normally you stand, you have your headphones on your face and there is this little screen in front of the microphone that catches all of your shitty saliva with a voice like mine. This time Tom said to me if you want, you could just hold the microphone in your hands like you go on stage. I go really?! but what about all these things. Sometimes you have a change of difference in five centimeters away, no problem. This is the kind of microphone that picks it all up, it just keeps the kind of volume on a same level. I said its the first time that I am going to try this out in the studio, we’re going to make an album, there’s no time to try things out.

He said well try and see if it works and afterwards we just take it from there. I tried it and it worked marvellously! It was just like I was on stage, I could bang my head, I had the microphone still in my hand go banging whilst there was a musical part in the track. It was just fantastic! It felt good! My personal change of the things of how I used to work but yeah I was really happy and I’m quite sure that for anything else that I record next time then I am going to do it the same way because it really felt natural.

It kind of gave you more of an organic feel to the record?

Definitely! I really sang everything in, like I was on stage! Microphone in my hand, performing. It was weird but it felt really, really good also it felt like you’re on stage and the stage is an extension of a living room haha!

A stage where no one is watching! What has been album that you have been listening to over the last six months to a year, something that has caught your attention?

There’s a young Death Metal band called Uber Tomber they are from French Canada so I think its pronounced Repugnation and we all really love that album. Its kind of, how to describe this style, they sound really filthy. You can compare it to a mix between Repulsion and Autopsy. We really like it, Alvin came with a link to it. Also I was really impressed, I was really blushing and acting like a shy kid when I met Discharge at Hellfest. They were flying in the same plane and I didn’t know it was them! Then later on I was like oh god! Its only Discharge! I can’t believe it! Finally after a few beers a got the courage to go up to them and say hey can I get you something to drink for being a big influence for me and making one of the best albums ever. Then they told me that they just released a new album, its fucking great! Its really the old Discharge style. Its not like Hear,See, Say Nothing but its definitely Discharge and its really them. I said woah! cool, Punk still lives! Thats one of the albums too that I have been listening to a lot.

What about touring plans? Does Asphyx have any touring plans towards the end of the year or is that going to be more reserved for 2017?

No! We already have a few things booked for this year but they have been booked for a while. We booked recently, we’re going to do two release shows. One in the Netherlands which is our country and close to where Paul is so its a bit of a hometown release show and one in Turock in Essen Germany which is a bit of a tradition for us. Its somewhat of a tradition for us as we have always done a release show there since Death…The Brutal Way.

Thats a kind of homecoming too so there’s those shows. We really plan on making them special and playing as much of the new material as we can because when we play festivals, you can only play fifty minutes or something and theres also people that want to hear the old material so you have to make a good mix but it means also that you can only play two songs off the new album. Were mainly promoting the new album so I hope that we can book a few shows as a headliner somewhere in a club. Play nintey minutes or two hours and play as much of the new album as possible. There’s not going to be a tour but we try and cover as many weekends as we can. We can come up with 40 weekends a year.

Fantastic so we’ve got all that to look forward to!

Yes! Definitely. I hope to get back to England too, I think I saw one mail, something from London nothing confirmed yet! We’re still in August ’16 so there’s a few months to go until 2017 but there are already a few shows confirmed. A few really nice ones so I’m really looking forward to that!

Asphyx’s brand new album Incoming Death is out September 30th via Century Media.